The foresight project “Adaptation to Climate Change including Societal Transformation” (Framework Contract 2018/RTD/A2/OP/PP-07001-2018-LOT1) was meant to complement the Mission Boards’ deep and wide-ranging expertise by exploring longer-term time horizons, up to and beyond the year 2050. Building on existing future-oriented work, the project employed dedicated foresight methods, in particular workshops and a Delphi survey, to explore this time horizon in a systematic manner, and involving experts and stakeholders as appropriate.

Climate Adaptation refers to anticipating the adverse effects of climate change and taking appropriate action to prevent or minimise the damage they can cause, or taking advantage of opportunities that may arise. It has been shown that well-planned, early adaptation action later saves money, lives, livelihoods, and biodiversity.

The foresight was based on the European Commission (EC) White Paper “Adapting to climate change: Towards a European framework for action” of 2009, and on the EU climate adaptation strategy adopted in 2013. At the time of the formulation of this strategy, the economic, environmental, and social costs of not adapting to climate change were estimated to range from 100 billion € a year in 2020 to 250 billion € a year in 2050, for the EU as a whole. Meanwhile, the EC in February 2021 elaborated and adopted a new climate adaptation strategy, which focuses on developing solutions and implementation of adaptation measures.

Research directions: Climate change adaptation (CCA) including societal transformation covers a broad range of areas, such as agriculture, dealing with water resources, disaster prevention, migration flows, security issues, behaviour changes, urban areas, industry and trade relations, transforming the energy system and transportation. The thematic scope of the foresight exercise was defined in close collaboration with the Mission Board (MB) through the Mission Board Secretariat. Consequently, the Delphi survey implemented in summer 2020 was used to assess elements of the interim MB report, in particular items around risk management, financial risk protection, social infrastructure, health, water, food/agriculture, and ecosystems. All the work fed into the final report of the Mission Board “A Climate Resilient Europe - Prepare Europe for climate disruptions and accelerate the transformation to a climate resilient and just Europe by 2030” (2020).

This is a synthesis report based on 130+ interviews conducted as part of the Strategic Foresight for Sustainability (SF4S). The synthesis report concludes the project’s Work Package 2, led by Finland Futures Research Centre, which had as a central objective to identify “key skills and good practices on the basis of interviews with the key community actors”.

Nine SF4S consortium partners – DKSD, EDC, EDHEC, FFRC, GEA, HMKW, ISPIM, IZT, and TalTech - carr ied out 91 interviews in situ or via digital communication channels from September 2022 to March 2023. In addition, 47 interviewees or discussants participated via focus group discussions (November 2022) and a public webinar (January 2023). 

The interviews map out sustainability, digitalisation, and foresight skills and practices in organisations around Europe with an emphasis on the project’s three target clusters: Agri-food, Health, and Mobility. In addition to industry representatives, experts in foresight, policy, consulting, and education have contributed their views to the project. 

For more information on the report, see the project website.   

In the fast-evolving landscape of Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS), the EU faces the crucial challenge of navigating the uncertainties of emerging changes, disruptions, and opportunities in the sector. This uncertainty demands a strategic approach to guide decision-making in the European manufacturing industry up to 2040. In this context, the MASTT2040 project uses inclusive foresight methods to build a shared understanding, engage key stakeholders, and craft a strategic roadmap, addressing short, medium, and long-term goals. The project’s overall goal is to make MaaS a catalyst for circularity, embed sustainability in industrial approaches, enhance supply resilience, and propel Europe to the forefront of MaaS expertise.

Find more information here.
 

4CF The Futures Literacy Company is a consultancy entirely focused on strategic foresight and long-term strategies. For nearly two decades, 4CF has been on the mission to help its clients prepare for an uncertain tomorrow. The Company has executed hundreds of projects for private companies, public institutions and international entities, including the European Commission and its agencies (EUDA, ENISA), FAO, UNFCCC, UNESCO, UNEP and UNDP. 4CF is at the forefront of global innovation, and actively contributes to the development of cutting-edge foresight tools, including 4CF HalnyX (Delphi platform), 4CF Sprawlr, 4CF FLEx.

Making use of the four “Imaginaries for a Sustainable Europe* in 2050” presented by the European Environment Agency and the Eionet**

This autumn, experts are developing alternative climate scenarios as part of a foresight project that helps prepare the 2nd Strategic Plan 2024-2027 of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for R&I. The project is conducted by the “Foresight on Demand” Consortium on behalf of the European Commission, DG RTD. In a Deep Dive area “Climate change and R&I: from social change to geoengineering”, together with the other members of the expert team, I am developing, among others, this 'coalition of sustainable communities' scenario. Get involved, comment on the scenario and relate the scenario to recent developments!

Travelling into the [future] (spanish: Viajando al [futuro]) is a long-term project aimed at developing desirable future scenarios for sustainable tourism in Spain together with local stakeholders and experts in the field. The project is funded by the European Climate Foundation and implemented in a collaboration between Futures Probes and Tipi. 

Process & Methodology

The project was structured into three main phases: Research, Crowdsourcing, Storytelling.

• In the research phase, a PESTLE analysis and the elaboration of local stakeholder maps identified environmental key factors and networks.
• In the crowdsourcing phase, participatory workshops with local stakeholders and a Delphi survey with tourism experts were run in parallel, built upon and at the same time challenging the knowledge gathered in the previous phase. 
• In the Storytelling phase, the results were used as the fundament for building six future scenarios, visualised as a written narrative accompanied by an illustration. 

Outcome

• Building up and strengthening local stakeholder networks and generating ideas for future sustainable tourism(s). Gathering of key insights on desirable, possible and likely future developments of tourism in Spain. 
• Identification and discussion of needs, desires, worries and attitudes of tourism stakeholders – in its complexity and diversity. 
• Six future scenarios to inspire can activate communities, organisations and citizens to define measures that accelerate the transformation towards a better, more sustainable tourism.
  

Next steps

• Developing indicators to measure the performance of (future) touristic activities in terms of their sustainability.
  
• Creating a network of change agents within the tourism sector to exchange experiences, needs, knowledge and to collectively identify possible synergies and action steps to be taken.
  
• Designing experimental pilot projects focusing on solving some of the concrete challenges identified as common to one or all of the regions observed.

SF4S is a collaborative action with partners from Higher Education institutions (HEIs), Vocational Education and Training (VET) providers, innovation networks and business entities from the Agri-food, Health and the Mobility sectors.

Carried out between July 2022 - June 2025, SF4S supports our transition to a more sustainable European economy by helping to address the lack of green, digital and future (i.e. sustainability foresight) skills among students and professionals and by connecting knowledge flows between HEI, VET and industry actors that are necessary for Europe to develop cooperative solutions on a large-scale and support the recommendations for action in the major reports and initiatives: Green Deal, NextGenerationEU, European Skills Agenda and OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Innovation Council (EIC) conducted a series of Horizon Scanning exercises across six EIC programme managers’ (PM) portfolios as part of an ongoing collaborative effort to strengthen EIC strategic intelligence capacity through the use and development of anticipatory approaches. The fields covered include: Space Systems & Technologies; Quantum Technologies; Agriculture & Food; Solar Fuels & Chemicals; Responsible Electronics and Architecture, Engineering & Construction.

The main findings of this Horizon Scanning – the identification and analysis of ‘signals’ from nascent research, technologies, or trends on the periphery of the mainstream – show opportunities for investment in emerging technologies and breakthrough innovations that can advance EU competitiveness while also serving to support the EU’s long-term policy and societal visions.
Other insights were taken from this exercise, namely the identification of drivers, enablers and barriers to technology development and adoption, that could be the starting ground of further foresight exercises and policy initiatives.

The report highlights three main themes – sustainability, energy, and scalability, which are overarching across signals, drivers, enablers and barriers. And concludes with a series of recommendations to streamline Horizon Scanning activities in the specific context and needs of the EIC.

Smart Futures Tunisia aims to explore what Tunisia and its digital economy could and should look like in 2035. For this purpose, normative future scenarios were created from which inspiring future job profiles could be derived. In a final step, recommendations identify options for action through which the envisioned future can be approximated.

The results are based on a three-stage methodology approach:

• First, key thematic areas were outlined through baseline research and expert interviews.
• Second, a foresight workshop was conducted to create a room to elaborate on different future scenarios and job profiles while also developing a digital skills map and initially discuss recommendations. 
• Third, the results were refined through expert validation loops and expert interviews.

The future scenarios were created to explore what urban areas, smaller cities and rural areas might look like in 2035. A future is drawn in which Tunisia is characterized by smart and self-powered buildings, increasing e-mobility, and public services delivered digitally. Apart from that, digital progress offers the opportunity to provide more equitable education, to conduct various types of commercial activities via e-commerce, and to improve access to health. Such a future in its variety of facets has been visually depicted in the graphic above.

Furthermore, future job profiles are derived on this basis. In a desirable Tunisian development, these will be found primarily in the areas of food production, fintech, e-commerce, health tech, mobility, ed-, gov-, and green tech. Specific job profiles range from farm drone operators, who operate and maintain drones that monitor, measure and analyze crop growth and health, to cybersecurity experts, who protect government data from digital attacks. To be prepared for the changing profiles, digital competencies need to be developed, which can be categorized into the following four pillars: digital literacy and data literacy, technology-specific skills, digital product literacy, and digital transformation literacy.

After developing future scenarios and outlining future job profiles, recommendations were finally drawn up that will enable Tunisia to proactively strive for the future outlined. General recommendations manifest themselves, for example, in the promotion of a "digital culture" that includes all strata of the population in order to make appropriate use of the potential of digitization. A specific example of a topic area recommendation is to strive for leadership in green tech solutions. Here, it is recommended to promote green tech culture, for example by including environmental sustainability and green tech solutions in education and public campaigns. In addition to content recommendations, Foresight Journey recommendations aim to improve and deepen the methodological applications of foresight for potential future ventures in this thematic field.

Smart Futures Tunisia is part of the Special Initiative “Decent Work for a Just Transition” Invest for Jobs of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Digital Transformation Programme Tunisia of the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Invest for Jobs aims to team up with companies to create good jobs in eight African partner countries and to improve local working conditions.

Anticipatin and monitoring of emerging technologies and disruptive innovation (ANTICIPINNOV) project is a collaboration between the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) with the European Innovation Council (EIC) 2023-2024 to strengthen strategic intelligence capacity through the use and development of anticipatory approaches. Learn more about the project from its's three different branches. 

Everybody is looking into the Future! A literature review of reports on emerging technologies and disruptive innovation

Growing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, present leading challenges in policy-making nowadays. Anticipatory thinking and foresight are of utmost importance to help explore trends, risks, emerging issues, and their potential implications and opportunities in order to draw useful insights for strategic planning, policy-making and preparedness. The findings include a set of 106 signals and trends on emerging technologies and disruptive innovations across several areas of application based on a review of key reports on technology and innovation trends and signals produced by public and private entities outside of the EU institutions. Its goal is to strengthen the EIC’s strategic intelligence capacity through the use and development of anticipatory approaches that will - among other goals – support innovation funding prioritisation. Other insights were extracted, namely those related with the scope of the EIC Programme Manager portfolios. 

Read EU Policy Lab blog post :Everybody is looking into the future: a technology foresight perspective 

Scanning deep tech horizons: Participatory collection and assessment of signals and trends

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Innovation Council (EIC) conducted a series of Horizon Scanning exercises across six EIC programme managers’ (PM) portfolios as part of an ongoing collaborative effort to strengthen EIC strategic intelligence capacity through the use and development of anticipatory approaches. The fields covered include: Space Systems & Technologies; Quantum Technologies; Agriculture & Food; Solar Fuels & Chemicals; Responsible Electronics and Architecture, Engineering & Construction. The main findings of this Horizon Scanning – the identification and analysis of ‘signals’ from nascent research, technologies, or trends on the periphery of the mainstream – show opportunities for investment in emerging technologies and breakthrough innovations that can advance EU competitiveness while also serving to support the EU’s long-term policy and societal visions.Other insights were taken from this exercise, namely the identification of drivers, enablers and barriers to technology development and adoption, that could be the starting ground of further foresight exercises and policy initiatives. The report highlights three main themes – sustainability, energy, and scalability, which are overarching across signals, drivers, enablers and barriers. And concludes with a series of recommendations to streamline Horizon Scanning activities in the specific context and needs of the EIC. 

Read EU Policy Lab blog post: Technology foresight: anticipating the innovations of tomorrow 

Technology Foresight for Public Funding of Innovation: Methods and Best Practices

 In times of growing uncertainties and complexities, anticipatory thinking is essential for policymakers. Technology foresight explores the longer-term futures of Science, Technology and Innovation. It can be used as a tool to create effective policy responses, including in technology and innovation policies, and to shape technological change. In this report we present six anticipatory and technology foresight methods that can contribute to anticipatory intelligence in terms of public funding of innovation: the Delphi survey, genius forecasting, technology roadmapping, large language models used in foresight, horizon scanning and scenario planning. Each chapter provides a brief overview of the method with case studies and recommendations.The insights from this report show that only by combining different anticipatory viewpoints and approaches to spotting, understanding and shaping emergent technologies, can public funders such as the European Innovation Council improve their proactive approaches to supporting ground-breaking technologies. In this way, they will help innovation ecosystems to develop.